Lesson 7
Complex illustrations with many components can make it more difficult to work with and select individual components. In this lesson, you will discover how to use Illustrator CS4’s Layers panel to organize and manage your illustrations.
What you'll learn in this lesson:
- Selecting itemson a layer
- Locking and hiding layers
- Creating new layers
- Moving items between layers
- Organizing layers
Starting up
Before starting, make sure that your tools and panels are consistent by resetting your workspace. See “Resetting Adobe Illustrator CS4 Preferences” on page 3.
You will work with several files from the ai07lessons folder in this lesson. Make sure that you have loaded the ailessons folder onto your hard drive from the supplied DVD. See “Loading lesson files” on page 4.
Getting to know the Layers panel
Whether you deliberately work with layers or not, every time you create, import, or paste items in an Illustrator document, you are placing those items on a layer. The default layer that is in every new Illustrator document is called Layer 1. The order in which you add new elements to the document determines their arrangement on Layer 1. The latest additions appear on top of the earlier ones; this is called the stacking order. Just like stacking sheets of paper on your desk, the first one placed appears on the bottom of the stack and the most recent one placed is positioned on the top of the stack. The Layers panel allows you select an item or items in an illustration, change their stacking order, show or hide them, and lock them. The following exercise familiarizes you with the Layers panel.
1 Launch Adobe Illustrator CS4 if it is not already open. Choose File > Open. In the Open dialog box, navigate to the ai07lessons folder and select the ai07.ai file. Press Open.
2 Choose File > Save As. In the Save As dialog box, navigate to the ai07lessons folder and type ai07_work.ai in the Name text field. Press Save, then press OK when the Illustrator Options dialog box appears.
3 Press the Layers button (
) in the dock on the right side of the workspace to open the Layers panel.
|
A. Visibility column. B. Edit column. C. Selection color column. D. Disclosure triangle. E. Target column.
F. Panel menu. G. Make/Release Clipping Mask. H. Create New Sublayer. I. Create New Layer. J. Delete Selection. |
4 Press the visibility icon (
) in the visibility column to the left of Layer 1; all the items that reside on that layer disappear from the workspace. Click in the box once more to make the pieces visible again.
5 Press the empty box to the right of the visibility icon in the edit column of the Layers panel. The padlock icon (
) appears. This locks all the items on the layer, making it impossible to select or edit them. Press the padlock icon again to unlock the items on the layer.
6 To the right of the padlock icon is the Selection color column. The color listed in this column is the color assigned to identify the items on this layer. Each object on the layer will have its frame edges and bounding box appear in the layer color when the item is selected.
-
When new layers are created, the layer colors are assigned in sequence down the list of Adobe system colors. There are 27 named colors to choose from, or you can select Other and specify additional color options. Layer colors can help you to visually categorize graphic elements at a glance. You can change the layer colors to fit your own visual system of organizing.
7 To the right of the Selection color column is the disclosure triangle. Click the disclosure triangle to see all the individual and grouped items (sublayers) that make up the illustration.
-
Compound paths, while made up of multiple paths, show up as one item in the Layers panel. Masked items also appear as a sublayer in the Layers panel, the clipping mask and the clipped elements can be revealed by opening the disclosure triangle of the masked group.
|
The disclosure triangle allows you to see the individual and
grouped items (sublayers) that make up your illustration. |
Using layers to organize your illustrations
Now that you’ve been introduced to the Layers panel, you’ll take a look at how you can use these tools to organize the different components of your illustration. This makes it easier to edit the illustration as it becomes more complex. First you will select items, change their stacking order, and then lock, hide, group, and rename them.
1 Make sure that the disclosure triangle next to Layer 1 in the Layers panel faces downward and that all the illustration’s paths are displayed. Press the Click to Target icon () next to any sublayer in the target column. As you click each item’s target column, notice that the item is selected in your illustration. To select multiple items, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard as you click in each corresponding target column. Deselect any items you have selected by pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (Windows) or Command+Shift+A (Mac OS), and navigate to the bottom of the Layers panel.
2 Press the Click to Target icon () belonging to the sublayer named Bubble Group. This selects all the items on the Bubble Group sublayer and shows the items in the workspace with a light-blue bounding box. The target column allows you to select items or groups of items directly from your Layers panel. Notice that a color box (
) now appears in the active selection column to the right of the target column. This shows you that these items are selected in the Layers panel and on the artboard.
|
The selection color box. |
3 With the Bubble Group sublayer still selected, click and drag the Bubble Group sublayer down in the Layers panel until you see a double-black line appear between the Ray Group and Background sublayers. Once you see the double line that indicates the stacking order position of the layer, release the mouse. The bubbles are now arranged beneath the rays in the illustration, but above the picture’s background.
|
Move the bubble layer. |
You have now changed the stacking order of those items in the illustration.
Double the bubbles |
1 Make another copy in the same position by cloning.
2 An Alt/Option drag of a selected item on the artboard will clone it, leaving the original and quickly making a copy in the new position where you drag it.
3 Similarly, you can clone-drag within the Layers panel to copy an item in the same X & Y position on the artboard, leaving the original and quickly making a new copy to wherever you drag in the stacking order.
4 To efficiently duplicate an object, a clone-drag in the Layers panel is quicker than Copy / Paste in Front or Paste in Back. |
Using the Layers panel to make selections
Now that you’ve seen how easy it is to select items in your illustration using the Layers panel target column, you will use the Edit and Visibility columns to make selections without affecting the locked or hidden sublayers.
1 In the Layers panel, click the empty boxes in the edit column of the Background, Bubble Group, and Ray Group sublayers to lock each of those layers. Press the visibility icon () in the visibility column for the Large Fish Group sublayer to hide the items on that layer.
2 Choose Select > All or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac OS). Even though you instructed Illustrator to select all the items in the illustration, none of the locked or hidden items are selected.
|
Items that are locked or hidden in the Layers panel
are unaffected by the Select All action. |
3 Choose Object > Group. Notice that all the selected items are now in a new sublayer in the Layers panel, named <Group>. The new Group sublayer has its own disclosure triangle that shows you all the items that make up that group.
4 Double-click on the <Group> sublayer in the Layers panel. In the Layer Options dialog box that appears, type Small Fish Group in the Name text field, then press OK. The Group sublayer is now named Small Fish Group in the Layers panel.
5 Press the visibility icon in the Visibility column of the Large Fish sublayer to turn on the layer’s visibility, then press the padlock icons for the Background, Bubble Group, and Ray Group sublayers to unlock them.
6 Choose File > Save to save your work. Keep the file open for the next exercise.
Creating new layers and moving items between layers
Now that you have grouped all the small items in your illustration into groups, you will further organize them by creating separate layers for these grouped items. You will rename Layer 1 and create two new layers, one for each fish. You will then select the large and small fish, and then move them each to their appropriate layer.
1 Double-click on the words Layer 1 in the Layers panel. In the Layers Options dialog box that appears, type Background Shape in the Name text field to rename this layer.
You can also change the layer selection color, convert the layer into a template, lock a layer, show or hide a layer, make a layer non-printing, turn off a layer’s preview, or dim a layer in this dialog box.
The Print checkbox in the Layer Options dialog controls an image being included not just when output to paper, but also when exported to another file format. When this box is unchecked, the image is not included in the printout or export. In some export formats, like PDF, the layer controls are retained in the exported file. Depending on the exported file format, the non-printing graphic may be totally dropped from the resulting file. You don’t want to make any changes now, so press OK.
|
The Layer Options dialog box. |
Some items should be seen and not printed |
Usually, if an item is visible on the artboard it will print, and if an item is NOT visible in Illustrator, it will NOT show up on output.
So why would someone need to make a layer visible but non-printing? Unchecking the Print box in Layer Options is an opportunity to communicate to the on-screen user of the file without adding to the final artwork.
A great example would be production notes, which can be visual instructions or information about the output of the file that are not actually part of the graphic content. Perhaps there are sizing or positioning constraints established by the corporate graphic standards that should ride along with the company logo. Or, placeholder graphics can give directions about ad placement on a publication page. |
2 To create a new layer, press the Create New Layer button (
) at the bottom of the Layers panel. A new layer named Layer 2 is now situated above the Background Shape layer. Change this default layer name to something more descriptive to keep your layers clearly organized. Double-click on the Layer 2 layer, and in the Layer Options dialog box, type Large Fish in the Name text field. Press OK.
3 You can avoid the extra step of having to change the default name of the newly-created layer by bringing up the Layer Options dialog box right away. It is more efficient to name your new layers at the same time as they are created. This time, hold down the Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) key on your keyboard while you press the Create New Layer button. The Layer Options dialog box appears, allowing you to name the layer as it appears in the Layers panel. In the Layer Options dialog box, type Small Fish in the Name text field, then press OK. The Small Fish layer is listed above the Large Fish layer in the Layers panel.
When you draw, place, or paste an object onto the Illustrator artboard, a new sublayer is created for it. This new sublayer appears in the active layer and at the very top of the stacking order within the active layer.
Rather than create layers in an arbitrary order then have to arrange them as desired, you can build the stacking order of your graphics on-the-fly. Position new graphics and groups in the layer sequence as intended by targeting the layer immediately below where you want the new item to appear.
4 Select the Small Fish Group sublayer (listed beneath the Background Shape layer) by pressing the Click to Target icon () in the target column. When the color box () appears in the active selection column, click and drag the square to the Small Fish layer and release the mouse. Once you release the mouse, the selection square and the color of the bounding box change to green to match the selection color of the Small Fish layer.
|
Once an item is moved from one layer to another, its active selection square and
bounding box color change to the selection color of the new layer. |
5 Click to target the Large Fish Group sublayer (also beneath the Background Shape layer heading), then click and drag its color box to the Large Fish layer. You have now transferred the features of one piece of a containing layer to its own separate layer.
6 Choose File > Save, then choose File > Close to close the file.
Suppressing the printing of a graphic |
You can suppress the printing of a graphic in several ways:
- Hide the selected item. [Object > Hide > Selection]
- Hide the item’s layer. [Click the visibility icon in the Layers panel]
- Uncheck the Print checkbox in the item’s Layer Options. [Double-click on the layer, or access through the Layers panel menu]
- Choose Template in the item’s Layer Options (this also dims the view to 50% by default, but can be adjusted to 100% to make item fully visible).
|
Using Layers for versioning |
Because layers can be selectively controlled, and easily made visible or hidden, they can be utilized to make versions of your artwork.
Show or hide layers to create comps showing optional design directions, or build multi-lingual packaging using different layers per translated language over a common base of artwork. |
Paste Remembers Layers
A convenient way to keep your layers organized is to use the Paste Remembers Layers option, accessed from the Layers panel menu. With this option, the clipboard holds not just the Illustrator artwork, but also information about the layer it originated on.
The Paste Remembers Layers option determines where artwork is pasted into the layer stack. When off, the pasted artwork lands on whatever layer is active. When checked on, artwork is pasted into the same layer it was copied from, no matter which layer is active in the Layers panel.
Having Illustrator keep track of the layers while you move items can let you work a little fast and loose, as you don’t have to pay as much attention to the active layer while cutting and pasting items.
Where Paste Remembers Layers really gets powerful is working between documents. When pasting into a different file, artwork is automatically placed into a layer of the same name, and creates a new one of the correct name if necessary. It’s a great way to transfer your carefully-named layer structure from one file to another, instead of ending up with lots of default-named layers.
Template Layers
Template layers are locked, nonprinting layers that you can use to manually trace images. Template layers can come in handy when you want to trace a raster image by hand or you want to create artwork from the scan of a mock-up design. Template layers are dimmed so that you can easily see any paths you draw over the layer. When that illustration is placed in a layout application, like InDesign or QuarkXPress, the template layer does not show or print. Template layers can be created in two ways:
The most common way to create a template layer is upon import, while placing raster artwork into Illustrator as a template. Select File > Place. In the Place dialog box, select the artwork you want to import and select the Template check box in the lower-left corner; then press Place. The file is placed on a locked layer and is dimmed to 50 percent by default, so that you can clearly see any paths you draw over it.
The second way to create a template layer is to convert an existing artwork layer into a template. Double-click a layer name in the Layers panel. In the Layer Options dialog box that appears, select the Template check box and press OK. The layers icon in the visibility column changes from the visibility icon () to a template icon (
), and the layer is automatically locked. If you convert vector artwork to a template layer, it will not be dimmed.
Try converting the Large Fish layer to a template layer and trace it manually, using any combination of the path and shape drawing tools.
Self study
Create another layer for another sea creature. Import a raster graphic or scan as a template layer, and manually trace over it to build a multi-layered graphic contained within the sea creature layer group. Comp up another version of the undersea artwork by hiding the Large Fish layer and showing the sea creature in the same position, so that only one is visible for output.
Review
Questions
1 How do you hide a layer?
2 How do you move an item or items from one layer to another?
3 How do you change the selection color for a layer?
Answers
1 In the Layers panel, press the visibility icon () corresponding to the layer you would like to hide.
2 Click or Shift+click the Click to Target icon in the target column of the items you want to move. Then click and drag the layer’s color box to the new layer.
3 Double-click on the layer in the Layers panel. In the Layer Options dialog box, choose a new color from the Color drop-down menu.
Congratulations! You have finished Lesson 7, “Organizing your Illustrations with Layers.”
